love and marriage Flashcards
TBJ: “What a man wants is a mate and what a woman wants is infinite security”
Mrs Willard feels that women should expect security from a marriage but nothing more and that men should have a devoting wife.
TBJ: “cook and clean and wash was what Mrs Buddy Willard’s mum did from morning till night.”
Post war return to the home encourages women to marry and have children as part of the defence against Communism
TBJ: “When you were married and had children it was like being brainwashed”
Esther fears that marriage will cut off her selfhood and ambition
TBJ: “I couldn’t stand the idea of a woman having a single, pure life and a man being able to have a double life”
love is much less safe for women in the 1950s (risk of pregnancy, economic dependence on men) while men are able to experiment
TBJ: “buying my freedom”.
Esther feels that women are trapped in marriage. When she buys contraception.
S&S:“Edward Ferrars was the eldest son of a man who had died very rich; and some might have repressed it from motives of prudence, for, except a trifling sum, the whole of his fortune depended on the will of his mother.”
Marriage as a social contract
S&S “if he still persisted in this low connection, represented to him the certain penury that must attend the match”
The importance of dowries and wealth
S&S: “the more I know of the world, the more I am convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love. I require so much!”
Marriage and personal happiness
S&S: “I am quite sure they’ll be married very soon, for he has a great regard for her”
The evolution of marital expectations
S&S: “Sir John was a sportsman, Lady Middleton a mother. He hunted and shot, and she humoured her children; and these were their only resources”
Marriages and social stigma
S&S: “she was stronger alone; and her own good sense so well supported her, that her firmness was as unshaken, her appearance of cheerfulness as invariable as, with regrets so poignant and so fresh, it was possible for them to be”- Elinor
Love as a transformative force
